I like beer

The Ink House

Pizzeria Tre Vigne

Grapevine at Charles Krug Winery

When you visit wine country, Napa Valley specifically, I think you are supposed to come away from there with memories of the taste of the wines you enjoyed and bottles of wine that you bought. You are supposed to rhapsodize about the oakiness or the lack of, or the bright tastes or the petulant aroma, or the musky flavors, aren't you? I guess we didn't do it right because our memories are going to be of three fellows we met or observed, not that much about the wine.

The first fellow was our host at the Ink House bed and breakfast that we chose over the internet. We chose the place because it was moderately priced and it had an interesting history and Trip Advisor commenters liked it. Our host wasn't there the first two nights--he was off installing his oldest daughter in her dorm for her first year of college. When he returned he was present during the "wine reception" that took place every late afternoon. While we munched on interesting cheeses, crackers and fruit and sipped or guzzled white and red wine, he answered our questions. And my question was, "Will you tell us the story of when Elvis Presley stayed in this house." His Elvis Slept Here story was long, detailed and scrumptious, better than the wine we'd been drinking. He had details nobody else would have had and you could tell he relished telling the story and had done research to make it better. He hadn't been present in 1961 when El and his co-stars Tuesday Weld and Hope Lang stayed in the house during the filming of Wild In The Country, but he might as well have been, he knew so much about it. He told us how the actors had started out staying in the town of Napa but that it had caused such a ruckus that they moved out to the more remote house in St. Helena in order to be able to control the crowds. The production company proclaimed that Elvis would sign autographs for 2 hours each afternoon, on the front porch of the house, and the girls lines up for miles hours before the signing began. He told us lots more, too much to relate here and he enjoyed every minute of his story. He also gave us great tips to get around the wine tasting fees that every winery but one assessed and he gave us glimpses into the history of the area. I'm sure he could have talked for hours, but we had dinners to go to and he had computer work to do.

Our second character sighting was at dinner at the Pizzeria Tre Vigne. While Michael and I sat on the patio, slurped up spaghetti marinara and heirloom tomato salad and we dunked french bread into olive oil with a puddle of balsamic vinegar in the bottom of it, we observed what we came to call The Affluent Family, sitting near us. There were two families, each with two children. The children ranged in age from about 3 years old to 6 years old. Without exception the children were out of control, but perhaps their parents saw them as free spirits. They were crawling under the table (not an unusual sight--I've seen this before), they were running back and forth among the tables and the 6 year old little girl was eating salt out of the salt shakers from empty tables. It make me very leery of using our salt, let me tell you. One of their parents would scowl occasionally and ask the children to stop doing whatever they were presently doing, but then turn away and resume their adult conversations while the children continued to do whatever they were presently doing. At one point, I heard one of the mothers say to one of the little boys, "If you do that again, it's over." Exactly what would be over we never found out because the little boy continued to do what he was doing and the threat was never executed. The fellow I will remember in connection to these wild children was a man who reminded me of Ted Danson, tall, lithe, white haired, nice hair cut, but young looking, white golf shirt with turned up collar, khaki shorts, loafers with no socks, expensive watch--he had the air of someone with quite a bit of money. They were regulars, the servers knew them and probably were very used to seeing the unruly children running about. I hope they were good tippers. After we got in our car and were leaving, we saw one of the little boys far away from the patio of the restaurant and we considered picking him up and depositing him down the street a couple of blocks to see if his parents noticed, but we decided against it.

Last, but certainly not least in our memories of Wine Country, will be The Wine Snob. I'm so glad we had one, because our stories of this trip wouldn't be nearly as good without him. He was staying at the Ink House, too. He made it very clear early on that he knew his wines. He would start a sentence with, "Do you like Pinots?" and then launch into directions as to where to find the best ones. He was a young fellow, younger than most wine snobs I've met, probably in his mid-forties. He had a very nice, regular wife who worked for the state in their native Michigan. I think it was his Detroit accent that made the snobby comments even better, because when he said things like Cabernet or Pinot it was said with that thing that Detroitians do to their vowels that is so distinctive and so NOT snobby sounding. At breakfast one morning we were all talking about where we'd been the day before, the photo gallery at Mumm's, looking at the art at Peju, the lunch at V. Sattui's picnic area--and he just had to say, "I'm here for the wines." As it turned out, he certainly was serious--he had been to the Ink House five times and each time he came he bought 5 or 6 cases of wine and had them shipped home. My favorite remark of his, the one that nearly put me under the breakfast table was, "And then we had to relax our palates...". I love accents and I would have loved to talk to him some more so that I could have really absorbed his Detroit accent and gotten some more snobby quotes from him. I am afraid I egged him on a little, just to hear more.

In addition to the characters we discovered, we also discovered that we are not really wine connoisseurs . We don't have the sophisticated palates required to know the subtle differences between one Pinot or Merlot and another. They either taste good or they don't. There was one wine that instantly made my nose itch--I knew I'd not want to drink that one again! We didn't taste that many, partly due to the fees charged at each winery for tastings, but also because we weren't that interested. Twice we had beer with our dinners rather than wine. We bought only one bottle, at a winery that offered free tasting. I find that I have a refined beer sensibility instead. I know the differences between a Hefaweisen and a Porter, and regular ale or a pale ale. I don't yet know much about "hoppiness" but I am dying to learn. Too bad we don't have more local breweries around, so that there could be "brewiery tours" like the wine tours. I'd be signing up.

We'll have good memories of Napa Valley but they won't be about the wine. I have to go relax my palate now.

Viewpoint

Cheryl DeGroot, Corky Sunkel, Linda Greaves and Janet Dore'

Janet Dore', Terry Scatena and Ralph Erickson

Terry Scatena, Dewene Buffett, Sandy Harkins with Wes Tonkins and his wife in the background

Today I am happy that I keep journals and that I have been writing in them for forty years. Yesterday I was reading in journals from 2000 to 2003 trying to find a mention of a medical test that I knew I'd had done in that timeframe. I did finally find some evidence that I needed for my current doctor, but in looking I also found entries about what my life was like 9 years ago. That's not very far back when you think about how old I am now--I can remember as far back as 60 years, so nine in virtually nothing, a blink in time.

I was reading about myself, about my husband, about my kids, about my brothers and my mother and my Dad, about my oldest friend. Funny thing is, if someone asked me today what I was thinking and feeling in the year 2000 I'd remember it differently than how it really was. I would have forgotten that my kids were emailing me lots more often then, I'd have no memory of a rift between me and my friend that mimics a problem we repeated recently. I would not have remembered what my brother had said about our Mom and his need for her gratitude, which is similar to some feelings I am having now. I wouldn't remember that my Mother's memory was shifty and that my present observation of her way of thinking is really not new at all. I did not forget the emails that my brother and I exchanged in the two years before he died. I had saved them and printed them all, including the ones in which we misread each other, got angry and then made up, aplogizing and professing our love for each other. I haven't forgotten that because it was so precious to me. It was the first time we'd ever tried to understand each other.

I spent hours reading the entries. It was as though someone else had written them and of course, if I admit that I am constantly changing, then it's understandable that I am less familiar with that Christine than with the one I'm living in right now. I have been reading a book called Crones Don't Whine by Jean Shinoda Bolen. She writes: "The thought that we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path, has intrigued me since it first entered my mind". That thought intrigues me, too. That our spirits inhabit a body on a human path, something like Stephanie Meyers character in her book The Host, is a mind warping idea. This spiritual creature inside of this human body, changes so much that nine years later I barely recognize it. It is as though the body has stayed relatively the same, but the spirit has shifted. It has not necessarily shifted in a good or bad way, it has not necessarily learned to be better or turned toward a more negative way, it has changed. And in some ways it has not changed at all. The rift with the old friend has been repeated. The thoughts of my brother have become mine. My relationship with my husband has been affected by the events that have occurred and my reaction to them.

Isn't it that way with our perceptions of our school mates? We can see that their bodies have changed and we think we can remember what they were like and what our awareness of them was 47 years ago. But do we really remember with any accuracy? Don't we have to consider what time has done to our memories? Don't we have to imagine what the passage of those years and all of their experiences has done to the spirits inside of them? If we think about what time has done to ourselves, don't we have to consider the same for them?

In another book I am reading, (Astrid and Veronika, by Linda Olsson), Astrid, a Swedish woman of 80, waits for her despised husband of 60 years to die--when he finally does she realizes that he was not her misfortune, that her demons had begun long before he came into her life. Could it be that some of the things that bedeviled us in high school and that we may have attached to certain people, were anxieties that came from elsewhere, before we even met these people?

I have been told by some of my classmates that reunions are terrifying for them, that their high school years are a time they would like to forget. I was lucky to have had a good time in school, with good friends and, mostly, positive experiences. But I know there are others who were not as fortunate. I also know that some of my classmates have conquered their fears and come to the lunches we have been having. In some cases they have found that they have held misconceptions about old acquaintances and have not considered the spirits inside the bodies that they recognize. And they begin to see that what they know as their own changing has also been experienced by their classmate. Of course this is the case. How could anyone not change? But sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we cast people we once knew in a frozen state inside our memory. Like a fossil they are forever preserved in memory even though in reality they are different people.

Like the evolution of the Christine Who Writes in her Journals, consider your own and everyone else's evolutions. Have you changed? Of course. Have they changed? Of course. If you have not come to a lunch yet, please think about it. We want to see the changes to the spirit inside you.

Lunch on Joyia's Farm

In Joyia's back yard

Left to Right kneeling: Carol Enloe Weber, Joyia Mentor, Marty McLaren

Standing left to right: Terrie Baughman Tenney, Dan McDonald, Nancy (Roi) Goit Wamboldt, Esther Shafer, Bob Wheeler, Karen Jean Robertson, Jack Archer, Chris Eddy Dosa, Ralph Erickson, Wayne Svenson, Linda Greaves Phillpott, Dean Johnson, Joanne Armstrong, Fred Just and Corky Sunkel and Mike Traverso on the phone is Chris's hand

Another fabulous lunch on Wednesday with the oldest friends of all, the people we went to school with. This time we saw some people we hadn’t seen in a long, long time: Dan McDonald, Joanne Armstrong, Karen Jean Robertson and Esther Shafer. I believe Dan lives locally, but Joanne was here from Edmonton, Alberta and Jean came all the way from Boston. When I asked Jean how she ended up in Boston, she went all the way back in her memory to the day she decided that since she wanted to see some places she’d never seen before, she was just going to go—no matter that she was only two years out of high school and that the mores of the time said that girls were either supposed to go to a junior college or get married and have babies. She didn’t let that stop her and she never let it stop her from that time forword.

Those mores didn’t stop Esther Shafer either, who showed us a picture of a bumpy time she spent on the back of a dancing camel and told us stories about the years she spent as a missionary in Africa, snakes and all. And even though Terrie Baughman was married for 41 years and had babies, that didn’t stop her from digging up stumps and putting up sheetrock, among other macho endeavors.

Those of us who did what society dictated at the time also had adventures and did hard work, tested our fortitude, but it is always fascinating to hear of someone who took a different road, which always takes guts. And to go on the road or to end up in Africa when you aren't on vacation? Wow!

Thanks to Nancy for this group picture which I snatched off of her Facebook page and was taken by one of the spouses who came to the potluck. Thanks to Ralph for cooking up some delicious ribs, for Dean who helped me flip burgers and for Joyia who shared her beautiful house and grounds in which we basked in memories and ate food lovingly provided by our friends.

postcards from norfolk: Life In Triplicate

postcards from norfolk: Life In Triplicate

Click on the link above and read. My daughter created this list and I think it's fabulous. Can you think of any threes she missed????

Proud X Three

Gabrielle Christine, Jacob Riley and Isabelle Grace Allen

The triplets are born and all three, Gabby, Grace and Jacob, are healthy, pink and beautiful. All weighed over 5 pounds and look just like regular one-at-a-time babies. Their little hats were marked A, B and C, I'm assuming for the order they were pulled out (Nicole had a C-section). The boy was last and you know his sisters will never let him forget it. According to their Daddy, Nick, they will be in the hospital for 4 days, during which the parents can try to get a grip on what it's going to be like to nurture three at a time. It's a good thing they're young because the sleeping stops now!

So I am officially a Great Grandma! Hallelujah! I didn't think it would feel so good!

Life and Lunch is Too Short

Lunch on July 17, Silverdale Waterfront Park

Sandy Harkins, Pricilla Preus and David Frazier

David Frazier and Linda Greaves Phillpott

Bonnie Barnhart Jenkins, Vickie C. Holt Barton, Vickie's niece and Nancy Kvinsland Roesch

Sharon Ward Hill, Bonnie, Nancy, Barbara Jarolim Merriman and Lavonna Rubens

Vicki A. Holt, Susan Mosher Miller, Terrie Baughman Tenney and Sandy Harkins

Two CK Alumni lunches in two days, hours of conversation and laughter, but still too little time.

What do more than 20 people who haven't seen each other, in some cases, for decades, have in common? Cholesterol problems, high blood pressure worries, arthritis pain, shortening memory, failing hearing, dimming eyesight, caring for elderly parents, fascination with grandchildren and certainly not least, being 65 years old. Our group also happens to have gone to the same grade schools and junior and high school. They watched Silverdale change from the quiet, green, agricultural area where they grew up to the busy and crowded cement-covered commercial zone it is now. Bonnie Barnhart hadn't seen Silverdale since a year or so after graduation. It was a shock to her senses. She recognized nothing, except that the high school was still on the hill. But she recognized the warmth we have toward one another, that grows each time we are together.

Our two-day Alum Love Fest started with a picnic in Silverdale on a lovely, warm day. Co-ed lunches have become regular occurrences, thanks to Jim Peterson and Dean Johnson with the help of Mail Guy, Ralph Erickson. This one was planned to snag some of the women who might be coming from out of state for the women's lunch the next day. Unfortunately, the one out of state woman was Bonnie and she didn't arrive until that night. But that didn't take away any of the fun in seeing some others we haven't seen in a long while. Barry Ball and his wife were there from Mexico and David Frazier came from his home in Spokane to visit family. I haven't seen David for many years, but I knew him instantly. The first thing he said to me was, "Don't call me Fuzz!" I did, of course, having only known him by that nickname. He's grown up now and has left that name far behind him, but he still looks like that freckled boy I knew when I was a teenager.

What we find out at these lunches is that even if someone looks the same, as some do, there has been 47 years of experience, getting, holding, changing jobs; raising children; marrying wives and husbands, losing some; joy, luck, war, hard times, bad health, travels--nearly a half century of living to shape and change the inside, and sometimes the outside, of this person we knew at such a young age. Every single story of a life is fascinating, heart-rending, and, as a friend of mine has observed, worthy of a novel.

The knowledge that there is a rich story inside of every person makes it hard for me at these lunches. There is always someone I intend to talk with, who I want to know about, whose life I want to hear, who slips by me. This last lunch it was David Frazier. I saw him, hugged him, saw him talking to others while I was talking with someone else and then it was time to go to the memorial service for Linda Greaves Phillpott's father, and I hadn't gotten to sit down with him and find out where he'd been, what had happened in his life. Later I learned from others who had gotten a chance to talk with him that his time in Viet Nam had made an important impact in his life. I would love to have heard about that. It would have helped me get past the nickname, to the real man. Luckily, in this hyper-technical world we now live in, I have found David on the internet and we can converse in cyberspace and I can hope he will come back to Silverdale again, soon.

The women's lunch the next day, at Vickie C. Holt Barton's lovely place in Brownsville, was more satisfying. There were fewer of us and a longer time to listen. The setting was conducive to conversation--a large porch with comfortable seating, another beautiful summer day. Vickie had saved many copies of The Megaphone, our old school newspaper, and while waiting for all to arrive some of us read old articles and wondered about some of the references, having no memory of what spurred them. For instance, Nancy Kvinsland and I were accused of crawling under houses....neither one of us could figure out what that referred to--we'd love to know. The same article mentioned our ringworm affliction, which we did remember had to do with playing with some kittens and in my case, involved a medication that was also for Chinese Rot.

While eating lunch we found ourselves talking about health issues, cholesterol, blood pressure and so on, which caused Lavonna to lean over to me and whisper, "Did you ever think, when you were in high school, that one day we'd be sitting around a table with the same people, talking about this stuff?!" (I know we did not, in those days when we thought about very little other than school, boyfriends and dating and certainly not about aging.) Thankfully, the subject changed, as the day wore on, from our aging bodies to other, less depressing topics. We talked and laughed for hours, only getting up to leave when the dinner hour started to come into view and we realized that our hosts probably had other things to do and we might, too. There was thanking, there was hugging and then we made our way back into the hot afternoon, past the bee hives and the apple trees and back out into our regular lives.

Two women who had been at both lunches expressed how they felt about the days:

Carol Enloe Weber commented on her Facebook page,

I'm still reeling from the weekend with my classmate brothers and sisters. It wasn't enough time. I couldn't get around to visit with everyone but hugs to all. I treasure hearing a little of everyones stories and would love to hear more. Both gatherings were wonderful.

And Sandy Harkins in an email to the committee after the women's lunch said:

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about 'today' with some women of our 'yesterday'. What beautiful pieces of work and art we have become compared to the rough-gem period we shared.

Well said, women!

Memorial

I am watching the Michael Jackson Memorial this morning and during the singing and eulogizing, the pictures of Michael Jackson flash up on the screen behind and I keep thinking: the poor kid, the poor little kid. He never was able to grow up, he never was able to really become a man. Even through all the controversy about how he lived his life, he was loved, but I wonder if he ever believed the love. So many mysteries have surrounded him and they will go on for months, but in the end, it would be best to remember how much he entertained the world and how much love he tried to show. No matter what, he was a genius.

The Gym

Another CK Alum suggested I write about "sock hops". He made his suggestion about 2 weeks ago and I've been trying to figure out what to write ever since then. He probably should write the blog post himself, because obviously he has some memories about those dances.

I have put a picture of the gymnasium at CK High School and one of a sock hop during the early sixties, from a couple of annuals, our Echo--the gym picture because as I was thinking about sock hops I began to think about other things the gym was used for.

Let's start with the sock hops. Until I started to look through my old Echos for a picture of a sock hop, I had forgotten that they were held after football and basketball games. (Those were the days we stayed up LATE!) My very first aural memory when Dean suggested sock hops as a theme, was a song, "Venus", sung by Frankie Avalon. We danced the "chalypso" to that song and others that had a Latin beat. For those of you who don't think I have spelled that word right, let me remind you that the word was a combination of Cha-cha and Calypso. Remember the Calypso, Harry Belefonte and our first exposure to Island music? Day-o, day-ay-ay-o--midnight come and we wanna go ho-ome...Anyway, Venus, Goddess of love that you are...we danced the Chalypso to that song, we did the stroll to some slow tunes, including the one titled The Stroll. We danced our version of the jitterbug, which by the late 50s was the dance that had evolved on American Bandstand, which we watched on our black and white TVs every afternoon after school.

Some girls probably learned how to dance from their older brothers or sisters, but I was the oldest in my family so my partner was the handle of the refrigerator. I danced with that cool partner in the kitchen when nobody was looking, because I would have been absolutely mortified if anyone had seen me. The Trouble and the Beauty with the frig was that it didn't move--when I got with a real partner at a sock hop, he moved, and maybe not even with the beat. I recall liking sock hops, liking being with a group of kids, moving with the music, dancing. I don't REALLY remember, but I'm pretty sure I went with a group of girls--strength in numbers--and there was probably intrigue and nervousness, as we wondered who would ask us to dance. In some sock hop pictures there are musicians so it appears there was sometimes live music, but I recall music coming from other sources--I think the person who suggested this topic would remember better than I where the music came from.

The gym was the hub of the high school and in addition to sock hops we went there for assemblies, pep rallies, to have our pictures taken for the Echo, basketball games, cheerleader tryouts and maybe most memorably of all, P(hysical).E(ducation).

P.E. was and probably still is, one of the most emotionally charged memories of high school. For those not athletically inclined it was an hour a day of mortification, unwanted strenuous activity, communal showers, sweat, complex rules, an hour we tried to get out of in any way we could. I can see all of us girls lined up in our snow-white shorts and blouses, trying to get noticed, or remain hidden, while "captains" were choosing teams, hoping to get on a team with our friends if we had to be on a team at all. If you had no physical talent, as appeared to be the case for me, team play was the worst, because others were counting on me to pass the ball to someone who could score, dribble the basketball only the 3 times allowed in "girls" basketball, not mess up. It was bad enough that I couldn't do a proper summersault during tumbling, or get out of the way fast enough in dodge ball, but if I let down a team member in basketball, I couldn't face myself. I had to pretend to take all the yelling with good humor, otherwise I would have cried. Lots of girls hated the showering after the class, but that was the easy part for me. Run into the shower with your towel around you, get your feet wet so the P.E. teacher would think you'd taken a shower, run out, get dressed. Easy. Kind of like the "ostrich principle"--if you didn't look at anybody else, they weren't seeing you. I got lucky during tumbling season one year--I fell off a chair at home, cracking my tailbone. The doctor gave me a 6 week pass from P.E. What a beautiful 6 weeks that was!

I wonder what P.E. was like for girls who liked sports and who did well at them. I got a little taste of what that might have been like when we played badminton and volleyball on summer potluck nights in the 70s, at a church I attended. I was actually good at both--I had confidence, which grew every time I was able to stretch to hit that birdie or jump to return a volleyball over the net. It was fun, my body worked well, I felt like an athlete. I was astounded that the same person who slumped her way through P.E. could actually do well on a court and that others found me a valuable member of a team. It was a total turnaround from the way I had felt about myself in P.E. and a tremendous confidence booster. I wonder if P.E. is still as brutal a class as it was when we were teenagers.

Pep rallies, on the other hand, were one of the best memories of what went on in the gym. Hundreds of us attended, from all classes, following the cheerleaders in rhyming chants, meant to psych us up and get us ready to cheer our team on to victory in the basketball or football games that night. The cheerleaders, who seemed like stars, worked hard, jumped high, screamed at us to scream louder, raise the roof, follow the leaders. Fight, fight, fight for CKHS, win the victory, we sang. 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar--all for CK stand up and holler! we yelled. We stomped, we clapped, we sang, we roared and afterwards the enthusiasm for the game that night was high and excited. We carried that energy to the games and we yelled and sang there, too, and sometimes we didn't even watch the game, because we were so busy showing our pep. We can only hope the guys running up and down the court or busting heads on the field, trying to win another game for the school, didn't realize we weren't always watching. We loved them just the same and we were always proud of them, no matter how our attention span may have wavered.

The gym--we spent a lot of time there, we sweated, we yelled, we danced, we were thrilled, we were embarrassed, we had romance, we had intrigue, we had hopes and dreams. We were youthful, energetic, confused, happy, frustrated. The gym held us all, and all our emotions.

School Lunch

From left, Nancy K., Jeanette Y., Yours Truly, Anne H., Vicki C., Anges, Helen C.

One of our number, the number being CK Alum of '62, recently challenged me to write about "school lunches" and being the writer type that I am, I am taking her up on that dare.

What I remember about the lunchroom and what went on there is only what I remember, meaning it is not the whole story.  My memory is spotty about those high school days and I am always finding myself responding to some fascinating, what should be memorable, high school story, with "Wow!  I don't remember that at all!"  So, being in my own little world during high school means I only remember my portion of what was actually going on.  I hope some of you will share your memories of "school lunches" so we can get a clearer picture.

I remember that lunches were divided into First Lunch and Second Lunch.  I don't know what that meant exactly, as to WHEN those two lunches were, but I do know it all depended on your schedule of classes, or maybe it all depended on which one you chose when you were choosing the classes you were going to take (a frequent dream of mine, by the way, the choosing of the classes).  I know that my group of friends all wanted to have the same lunch period and we managed to get it, judging by the picture above, so maybe it was chosen BY us, not for us.

I was one of those people who brought their lunch to school every day.  I certainly had many lunch boxes over the years, because I never was able to buy hot lunches, even though I would have died to get them.  I am pretty sure the lunch box I had was red plaid--that's the one that I picture.  And what was in that red plaid lunch box?  Sandwiches, tuna, peanut butter and raspberry jam, or bologna with mayonnaise.  No lettuce, not because I wouldn't have liked it, but because it would have been horribly wilted by lunch time--there were no thermal lunch boxes then, only tin, with a space for a thermos (pint-sized) of milk.  But I got to buy milk and sip it with a straw, which had a certain cache for me, since I couldn't buy the hot lunch.  Better than nothing.  

So I had my lunch, which sat in my lunch box in my locker until lunch time, getting warm and soggy.  I suppose there was fruit in there sometimes--or a cookie--something to break up the monotony of the sandwich.  I didn't pack my lunch--my Mom did--and she wasn't very creative about it, I'm afraid.  But I didn't care, because my main goal at lunch was to get something off of somebody else's hot lunch tray!  Not a single one of the girls I had lunch with seemed to understand how cool it was to be able to have a hot lunch.  They took them for granted, I guess.  They hated the food that was dished onto them, particularly Shepherd's Pie.  Well, lucky for me and for them, Shepherd's Pie was one of my favorites of the coveted hot lunches.  When Shepherd's Pie was on the lunch menu for the day, I was in heaven.  I knew that at least one of the girls at our table would let me have the whole thing.  They would eat whatever else was on the tray, but I would get the Shepherd's Pie.  Oh, glorioski!  Did I ever love those mashed potatoes and carrots and string beans and meat and gravy all mixed together. I can still taste that Shepherd's Pie as if it was yesterday.   I liked the Swiss Steak, too, which most of my friends did not like and there were probably other meals they gave to me.  It's a wonder I didn't have to diet in those days, isn't it?

The other thing about school lunchtime that I loved was the laughing and the talking we did.  Was the lunch an hour or 30 minutes?  I don't know.  But I do know that we filled it with gossip about boys, joking, teasing each other, griping about our brothers/sisters, complaining about teachers, homework, organizing slumber parties, wondering who was going to be asked to dances, making elaborate plans for how to get a boy's attention.  I don't recall talking about clothes much, we didn't wear makeup except lipstick for some of us, we didn't talk about our weight or our hair, that I recall. 

I suppose we talked about what we were going to wear to dances.  That was always a problem in my house--how we were going to afford the dress for the dance.  I remember getting a used white dress for one of the dances and buying green velvet ribbon, which I made into little bows and sewed onto the dress.  It reminded me of a dress I'd seen in Gone With the Wind, so I was happy with it.  And with every dress there had to be shoes and gloves, because (remember?)  we used to wear gloves then.  I had a pair of little white gloves (and one pair of white heels) and probably one of the lunch discussions was how to wash the white gloves and keep them clean.  We might have talked about the white buck shoes we all wore then--and the little powder packet we used to slap on the shoes to keep them white.  We might have talked about starching and ironing our petticoats, the more petticoats you had under your full skirt the more status you had.  I only had 3.  Poor me!  We might have talked about getting permanents to keep our hair curly--for those of us who had straight hair.  Many of my friends had curly hair and I don't believe there were hair straightening techniques then, or they would have used them.  No teenaged girl is ever satisfied with her hair.  My mother started me out at 4 years old with my first perm and bankrolled them, at the Cinderella Beauty School in downtown Bremerton, for the rest of my school career.  After high school there were no more perms for me.  The smell of the "neutralizing solution" was enough to put me off them forevermore.

I bet we talked about football and basketball games and cheer leading.  Some of our circle aspired to be cheerleaders and one of us, Helen Callison, actually achieved that goal.  Bonnie and I tried out once, but alas, we did not succeed.  But we all went to the games and cheered for our Cougars and sang the school song and the fight song and in my case, didn't really watch the games.  I knew all the rules, because I watched sports on television with my Dad, but high school sports, for most of us girls, was more a social occasion than a sport to follow, unless one of the boyfriends was on the team.  Then it was a different ball game, so to speak.

Which brings us full circle back to school lunches, which were not about eating, except when there was Shepherd's Pie.  School lunches were about being social, about eating with friends, about laughing, as that picture, which was in the Senior section of the 1962 Echo,  shows.  They were about belonging and that high school family that you form, that is more important, sometimes, than your real family and often more supportive.  There is a movie that I would recommend, called Mean Girls, that is all about high school, about lunch rooms, about the angst of the teen years.  I don't recall being one of the Mean Girls.  I hope I wasn't, though, as I say, others might have different recollections.  I hope we didn't cause angst, because we had enough of our own--in our families, in our "romances", in our insecurities, which are at their height in high school.  Any and all of our anxieties could have been aired at that lunchroom table, during that one blessed hour (or half hour) of the day when we were allowed to forget about classes and what might be going on at home.  Mostly, though, we just laughed.

PS:  I nagged Silver City Brewing (www.silvercitybrewery.com), in Silverdale, to please add Shepherd's Pie to their regular menu and they finally did.  Try it some time--it's absolutely delicious and the taste of it takes me back to that lunch room 40-plus years ago.  But now I have to pay for it with money rather than with my dignity!  I think it tasted a little better when I had to grovel for it.

Sponsoring a Child in Africa

What an incredible rush (as we used to say back in the day)!!!  I just committed to sponsoring a child in Senegal, West Africa.  I listen to KZOK radio every morning--specifically the Bob Rivers Show.  They are the ones who create Twisted Tunes and they don't play much music, other than what they have created.  Mostly they talk, interview comics or scientists (Bob is very into science) or people in the news, but for the past couple of years they have been involved with World Vision, an organization that Bill Gates also supports.  Bob and other members of his show have been to Senegal to see the conditions first hand.  They have all sponsored children and have child-sponsor drives every year.  This year Bob's son, Keith and his wife and Arik, the show's producer, went to Senegal.  It was a world-view changer for Keith.  Keith just returned and he was on the radio show this morning trying to explain his feelings.  He couldn't stop choking up.  I have been listening to these drives for a few years now and been tugged and pulled, but had resisted actually sponsoring a child--it s $30 a month commitment and I felt that it was too much for my limited budget.  Yes, I have a husband who is rolling in dough, though most of it goes into savings for our retirement, but our finances are kept separate, so anything like this comes out of my Social Security and pension from the State, which isn't huge.

However, this morning, listening to Keith talk about these kids and his epiphany, listening to him come to tears every time he attempted to talk about it--that got to me like nothing has before.  So I got online and I went to the website that KZOK has put links to all over their website and I chose the second child they showed me, because she is almost exactly the same age as my granddaughter, Alison.  Her name is Sokhna Diarra, born March 15, 2005.   She doesn't go to school yet and my donation will help her do that when the time comes.  I have the World Vision address so that I can send her letters, which I will do as often as I can.  I felt that I spend so much on stupid stuff, coffees, books I don't need, (shelves of them I haven't read yet), clothes I don't need and my grandchildren have everything they have ever wanted and more.  I can afford this and I must do it.  I used to dream of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa and then marriage and children happened and the Peace Corps became something that wasn't ever going to happen.  I also used to dream of being Dian Fossey or Jane Goodall, going to Africa, studying primates.  Well, that was pie in the sky--no degree in anthropology or any science that would get me there and an aversion to outdoor camping(!).  So Africa has been in my dreams for decades.  Here is my connection to that continent.  Rather than being a tourist there, which is still a possibility, I am going to help this one child.  

I will put addresses here to the KZOK website and to the World Vision website, just in case anyone who reads this has a charitable inclination.  It feels good, but more important, much more important than how I feel right now, is that this little girl may have a better life because of the money I am sending.  She may have more opportunity, she may have more faith in life from the letters I will send her and the gifts I will send her.  Hopefully, one day I will meet her.  They wrote in the little description of her and her life, that she is in "satisfactory" health.  Maybe this will help her achieve good health.   

www.kzok.com 

  www.worldvision.org  

I'll keep you posted on how this is working out, but I have great hope that Sokhna will benefit and it's going to feel damned good to write to her and send her things.  She will be grandchild #7.  And 7 is a lucky number.

Summer Laundry

Who can do a long post when the weather is so beautiful that all you want to do is hang your laundry outside and sit in the shade and drink cold things while it dries?  As we know oh so well, it will be over before we have a chance to get used to it.

And, in other news:  Welcome back to the Real World, Ralph!  I hear your bridge is open.

Into the Woods

We have been getting lots of wildlife in the yard this year. At the top is a bunny that was visiting last Spring, and now we have him or his big brother or mother, lounging around in the yard like he is our pet. The bunny was munching on a piece of grape vine that I had pruned, so it must have been in the Fall. Next, of course, is the ever popular brown slug. We have loads of these since the woods (or Forest as my husband refers to it) is only about 100 feet away in any direction. Whenever it rains, after flowers start to appear, I am out ruthlessly stabbing them with the sharp sticks I have placed at strategic points around the yard, and flinging them back into the woods from whence they slithered.

Next is a very ambitious racoon that was skulking around, stealing food from the bird feeders, even though husband had placed them high up in the attempt to foil the squirrels. Next a lovely butterfly, last summer. I assume we will see them again this summer, though I might have to buy another verbena plant to lure them to hang around for picture taking.

And then one of the many little red squirrels that scamper all over our yard, digging up bulbs, eating the bird seed, coming to the patio door to look in, presumably wondering when I'm going to come outside to put out more bird seed for them.

The last is a nice, fat lizard that was sunning himself next to the garage door earlier this Spring. Haven't seen him since, but we think he lives under the garage floor. I took his picture with the 70--300 mm lens I got for Christmas so he looks really big, though if you compare him to the mouse trap (oh yeah, we have lots of mice, too) you can judge his real size.

We also have at least one bat that resides high up under the eave of the house roof--we can only occasionally see part of him, but if we sit out at dusk we can watch him sailing around and around in circles above the house, cleaning the air of (hopefully) mosquitoes.

And we have a Barn Swallow Mr. and Mrs. who build their nest in a swallow box we put up several years ago. This is probably the 4th year they've used the nest. Last year I took very blurry photos of the babies, but this year, with my new zoom lens, I should get better ones and not scare the parents as badly. We have two more nests in the yard, that we know about, and many more out there, I'm sure. One is in the Liberty Apple tree--a robin's nest, used and redecorated every year. I've seen Mrs. Robin picking up long strands of dry grasses and pretending not to be going to the tree.

The other nest I found accidentally when I pulled down a hanging basket that I had planted a geranium in a couple of weeks before. I was going to put some Lobelia in it, but there was a cup-size nest, perfectly round, right next to the geranium, and in it were 4 blue, speckled eggs. I thought it must be another Robin's nest and my birder friend thought so, too. But a week later while I was watering another planter close by, I saw the little black head of a Junco. Mama Junco was sitting on her eggs. Since then the babies have hatched and I see Mama J. flying back and forth to the nest. She doesn't seem to be too worried about me. Maybe she can tell that I mean her no harm, as I avoid getting too close now. I haven't watered that geranium since I discovered the nest. Good think they don't require much water. I doubt I will ever be able to get a photo of this tiny family. There is no place to lurk nearby to get a good one.

This morning I took pictures of the Big Bunny Rabbit, lounging in the garden. I'll post a photo of him later. I guess I should give him a name, since he seems to think he owns the place. Maybe Harvey.....but he's know hallucination.

Garden Buddy

My Little Garden Buddy

Lately I have been thinking about aging bodies, specifically mine!  I have been having tired back lately.  Tired back is caused by bending over too much, and I have been bending over too much in my garden.  The sun is out--what else can I do?  I have to Make Hay While The Sun Shines.  There is a reason for that old cliche'.  But tired back is coming way too often now.  I used to be able to spend a couple of hours doing major gardening--hoeing, raking, digging, pruning.  I used to be able to squat down and weed for a long time and get up and still be able to walk.  

The reduction in the ability to do those things has been coming on gradually.  A few years ago I bought a little wagony thing called a Garden (or Lawn) Buddy.  It's a nifty little vehicle, 4 wheels, a lid that open and acts as the means to pull the wagon, a nice big compartment for tools, a tray, even a couple of "cup holder" spaces on the lid when it's closed.  I sit on the cup holder places so they aren't that useable.  The Garden Buddy is for sitting on so that I don't have to kneel, something that has always, even as a kid, given me fits.  I bend over from a sitting position to weed.  That worked great for several years, but now that bending over action is causing me problems, too.  The upshot is that I have had to weed for shorter and shorter periods of time--frequent breaks result.  Lots of getting up and "walking it out"--going for water--reading the paper while the kinks relax--watching the birds--going back, doing 15 more minutes, taking another break.

My Mom used to call me Powerful Katrinka because my arms and hands were so strong, or at least stronger than hers.  But now those same arms and hands belong to a woman who needs a jar opener to help her open the pickles and, thankfully, a husband to help lift heavy things. "Lift with the knees bent" has become my mantra.  A graduate buddy told me that he no longer can peel logs the way he used to.  He can still do it, but not as well.  I'm impressed that he can still do it!  

I know I'm lucky.  I don't have bad knees, I don't really have a bad back, my eyes are good, my hair is pretty thick.  My stomach doesn't digest the things it  used to but I don't have ulcers. I can't hear anything, and that's a problem for another day.   I merely wish that my muscles and ligaments were a little more forgiving.  Now that I have all this time I can spend in the garden, I wish I had the body to do it.  That's the irony, isn't it?  Retire at 63 and still have the energies and the abilities of a 50 year old?  Wouldn't that be the cat's meow?  Our generation wants to have it all and do it all and if we wait until we're in our 60s to have and do, then we have to face it,  the "it" being the fact that our bodies ain't what they used to be, ain't the efficient machines they once were.  My body may be more happy to be on a cruise ship, or at a resort, and it will be there, too, eventually.  

I'm sorry, I have to go now.  The sun is shining and I have to get out in the garden.  I'll see you later when I come in to put ligament on my sore muscles.

In Memorium

Gerry Potter and my Mom

Gerry Potter died on Mother's Day.  This is what I wrote and read at her Memorial Service on Saturday, May 23.  I doubt anyone reading this blog would know Gerry, but one of my blog lookers wanted to see what I wrote and I wanted to give Gerry this tribute.

The Potters, Gerry and Jay, were all mixed up with my childhood.  Jaydee and Pam and Randy were closer than cousins, Gerry and Jay were better than an Aunt and Uncle.  When I think of that Golden Time, when my brothers and I were small, I hear Gerry and my Mom (Chickie Eddy) talking and laughing, Gerry’s low chuckle, my Mom’s high trill and Jay and my Dad (Stan Eddy) counting: 15 two, 15 four, 15 six and a pair is eight, as they tried to skunk each other at Cribbage.   I think of the camping trips to the Hamma Hamma, the Skokomish, the Satsup Rivers and other Olympic Mountain destinations, the campfires we sat around, the pungent odor of wet socks drying, because 75 % of those camping trips were rained on.  I remember Mom and Gerry sitting at the picnic table gabbing, waiting for their fishing husbands to return to camp so we could all eat dinner.  

I remember the Madrona Point house, my brother, Dan, water skiing with the Potter’s and their neighbors, the Neshems.  I remember the smell of the tuna fish with onions that Gerry made, and the cookies always baking.  I remember my brother, Dan, and I sharing Gerry and Jay’s big bed  while our folks played cards in the kitchen.

Gerry and my Mom did something I’ve never known two other women to do, ever.  They got together every week to iron.  Those were the days of no Permanent Press;  everything had to be ironed.  They brought their boards, their irons and their laundry baskets full of clothes to Gerry’s house one week, Mom’s house the next, and they ironed and laughed and told stories and gossiped and before they knew it, the ironing was done.  It was genius.

I will always credit Gerry with influencing me in terms of color, stylishness and confidence.  My Mom is no slouch in those categories either, and maybe that’s one of the many reasons they were close for so many years.  I loved Gerry’s red hair and freckles, her colorful clothing and her laugh and her intelligence.  I have a picture of the two of them from the 50s, on a camping trip, Mom and Gerry, standing together, one arm around the other,  hands on hips, legs further apart than was traditionally lady-like, sunglasses, pedal-pushers, broad smiles; Gerry in sensible saddle shoes with socks, my Mom in shoes not quite suitable for the river beach they were standing on; two great friends, confident women, wonderful role-models for their daughters.  They did what the times expected of them:  they raised their children, they catered to their husbands and they kept their houses clean.  Gerry and my Mom, though, did it with such style and good humor they made it look like fun.

When I retired 2 years ago it was part of my plan to get Mom and Gerry together for some lunches with me and I succeeded twice.  The first time I took them to the Silverdale Hotel cafe and I got to listen to the two old friends reminiscing and laughing together again.   Gerry got Pam to come to the second lunch and we ate Mexican food  and admired pictures and told stories of kids and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Gerry told us she was going to have surgery in April.  That was the last time I saw her--walking away with Pam, smiling, waving.  I am going to remember her the way she was that day--positive, excited by her family and their activities, joking with Pam, looking to the future.  She was dressed in lavender  and her red hair was still thick and curly, her laugh still low and vibrant, her mind sharp.  She was the Gerry I always remembered and the Gerry that will live in my heart for the rest of my life.

Three Gifts

Portrait of my Mom taken in the Forties

Mother's Day is always fraught with anxious expectation for me.  My Mom and Dad used to go to Spectacle Lake in Eastern Washington during the week of Mother's Day.  This was after Mom's kids were grown and I think the idea was to not be home waiting for phone calls.  That's wise!  I found myself waiting at home for phone calls this past Sunday.  Not fun, I assure you.  I kept busy, gardening, helping to repair a little dent I put in my car, reading, watching 60 Minutes, cooking dinner.  But I was rewarded this year with three phone calls.  Here are the three gifts I got this Mother's Day:

1.  I took my Mom to lunch during the week and gave her a gift I've been working on, literally, for years.  Several years ago Mom gave me 35 chapters of a memoir she envisioned. She wrote the pages while she was working in a writer's group sponsored by her Tracyton Methodist Church.  Each was an assignment:  Write about Your Favorite Christmas Present, Your Mother, Your Father, etc.  Mom asked me to type up the pages on the computer and add pictures from her youth, her motherhood, her married life.  I had typed most of the pages before I retired and my first goal of retirement was to finish typing, choose and insert the pictures, copy in color at Kinkos, get the book bound and give it to Mom.  There was a certain urgency and anxiety in this as I had make a "picture book" by hand, honoring my Dad, to be given to him on his 80th birthday, but he got sick and didn't ever really "see" it.  I took it to him in the hospital but I don't think he realized what it was.  I ended up displaying it at his memorial service two weeks later.  I didn't want that kind of thing to happen to Mom's memoir.  The memoir finished nicely.  The cover is a watercolor that an artist neighbor painted of her when Mom was in her late 20s.  The book looks really nice.  So, okay.....I gave it to her at lunch.  She was flabbergasted, blown away, couldn't believe her eyes.  She had largely forgotten that she asked me to do this for her.  She is totally unaware of what can be done with a computer.  She could hardly wrap her mind around the finished product.  I had to keep telling her that she had written every word, that I had merely put it together.  Over and over she exclaimed what a wonderful gift it was.  It was the look on her face and the emotion in her voice that were my first Mother's Day gifts this year.

2.  The second gift was the three phone calls from my kids.

Carolyn, middle daughter who lives in San Diego, called first, mid-morning.  We talked about my grandson, Alex, 6 years old; Starbucks, where she works; dating, which she is doing again after breaking up with a boyfriend at Christmas.  I was looking for, as usual, evidence of happiness in her life, and I detected some.

Christopher, my son in Wisconsin, called next.  He was talking while driving his family and his Mom and Dad-in-law to Duluth for a week long vacation by Lake Superior.  I don't condone talking on a cell phone while driving, but I didn't quibble.  He was calling, that's what mattered. We talked about books I'd sent him for his 32nd birthday two weeks before; his basement remodeling; the cottage they would stay in at Duluth; my plans to visit again in December; his beloved, rare Acura car, which he vows never to sell.  ( I wish I knew what model it is so any guys who read this can know, but I'm afraid all I know is that it's yellow, it's small and he used to race it.)  I didn't have to look for signs of happiness, because he has always been pretty self-contained and I happen to know that right now things are good.

My eldest daughter called around 7:15, 10:15 her time, in Norfolk, VA.  We discussed so many things it's hard to remember them all.  We had talked recently so were pretty caught up but there are always lots of things to talk about with Erin.  She and I, who used to be not so easy with each other, are now Mom/Daughter friends and she is about to be a grandma for the first time, so we have even more in common now.  The conversation ranged from what we are currently reading, to my two grownup grandsons, to her charming-and-good-looking-husband, Kent's, birthday, to knitting (she does, I don't), to Star Trek. She gave me my third Mother's Day gift.

3.  Erin, the eldest, will be a grandma of triplets.  We've know this now for a couple of months. My grandson, Nick, and the young woman who will give birth to the triplets with him, Nicole, have already picked out names.  One of the names for one of the two girls was Madison something.  Nick or Nicole decided they didn't like that name and so they changed it to Gabrielle, but they were stuck for a middle name--Erin suggested my name--Gabrielle Christine.  So, unless they decide that's not what they want, I will be immortalized, at least for her lifetime, in this brand new little girl's name.

Those were my three gifts.  I don't think I've ever had this satisfying a Mother's Day.  I got caught up on all three of my delightful children, I made my own Mom really happy, and I get to be remembered in somebody's name.  I hope you had a satisfying Mother's Day.  I know some of you probably didn't, but there is still hope because we're still here.

While you're waiting let me leave you with this great quote:

"Our young haven't lost their history; it was taken from them...You've got a file on this century stored in your heads, that nobody else has.  There'll be nobody like you ever again.  Make the most of every molecule you've got, as long as you've got a second to go.  That is your assignment.  That is your charge."              David Bowers, Environmentalist

Sixty-Five and Still Alive

I have been 65 years old for 5 days now.  Do I feel any different?  I feel lucky that I am healthy, not in pain, usually, don't yet have to take any cholesterol, blood pressure or heart medicine and have been able to stop my bone medicine.  Feel happy and fortunate to have a good husband and healthy, happy children(3) and happy grandchildren (6), dismayed that great-grandchildren triplets are on the way. Extremely happy to have many friends.  Crossing my fingers that my Mom will be in good shape for a bit longer.  Encouraged that the Spring is warming up.  Excited about being able to use ALL Senior Discounts that are being given. Glad I can still walk easily, bend over to touch my toes, garden.  Content with my retirement so far, looking forward to my husband's job-leaving coming up in less than 2 years.  Anticipating more travel adventures when we can both get away on impulse.

Right after I turned 64, last April, we went to Greece, my fourth visit.  So I started my 65th year with a wonderful two weeks exploring Athens a little more than before; experiencing a Greek Easter, with the spit-roasted lamb and lemon roasted potatoes, the red Easter eggs, the big family dinner; fast driving with cousins Lambrose and Mary; a long car trip to eat fancy ice cream bordering a beautiful lake; bakery buys on the way to see distance relatives; Greek family drama; staying in a Greek hotel rather than in the family house; 2 weeks of major foreign-ness.   In June we went to Orlando, the first time I'd set foot in Florida, and we went to Epcot and I got epic blisters on my feet and we went to Universal Studios, and I got to see Florida thunderstorms.  Awesome!

This year, we have no plans for travel until September--the year is going to start more quietly.  We went to the Tulip Festival up near LaConner this past weekend and the sun shined through the black clouds and the tulips were in bloom.  A quiet, but pretty, beginning.  

35 was a milestone for me, since it was one of the actuarial cutoff points--18 to 35.  But 65 isn't bothering me like 35 did.  That's the thing about getting to this point.  It's more of a "feeling lucky I made it" thing, more than a "Yikes, I'm getting older" reaction.  The obits show more and more people my age and younger passing away.  Getting this far in good health is a Good Thing.  And now that I have been able to reconnect with a bunch of high school alumni I know a whole bunch of people the same age as me--that's really helpful.  My friends have mostly been younger than me, and though I still love to hang out with people who can tell me who Miley Cyrus and Zach Efron are, it's good to be around peers, if only to commiserate about what it's like to be 65 and who know that Paul McCartney used to be a Beatle.  And they probably remember Patti Page, too.

Driving home from getting a haircut yesterday I was thinking about "marker" birthdays and where I was and what was happening.  At 35, 1979, my second husband and I were living in Poulsbo, my oldest daughter was 16, my middle daughter was 13 and my son was 2.  My husband had either not started cheating yet or I was just ignorant of it, so things were pretty good. We were starting our involvement with Bremerton Community Theater, middle daughter was living with her Dad, oldest daughter was active with the North Kitsap high school band and seemed happy.  My husband was working at Kingston Lumber, I wasn't working and we were struggling financially, but still having a good time.

At 45, 1989, my husband had been unfaithful more times than I probably knew and we were on the verge of separation. I traveled in an airplane for the first time during my 45th year, to visit my newest(third) grandchild, Alecia, in San Diego.  I was working as a manager at Northstar Sportswear in Kingston, my oldest daughter had had her two boys by this time, my second daughter had graduated by the skin of her teeth from East High School and left Washington, with a friend and her mother, and settled in Arizona.  My son was 12, a fun and interesting kid.  It wasn't a happy time but I was trying to make the best of it.  I think it was during this year that I tried Buddhism, looking for answers I suppose.  

At 55, 1999, I had met and moved in with my (to-be) third husband.  By 55 we had been together for 6 years,  my oldest daughter had left her husband and moved to Norfolk, VA with her second husband; my second daughter had left Phoenix for San Diego and was a single parent; my son had married his high school sweetheart and in 1999 they were probably in Denver, CO.  I had traveled to Greece and to England, to Hawaii; Ventura, CA many times; Salt Lake City; Jackson Hole, WY; Norfolk. I was working for Educational Service District #114, we were prosperous, nobody was cheating on anybody, I lived in a bigger house than I'd ever lived in, had a nice car, I was planting lots of flowers in my big yard, in a quiet neighborhood West of Silverdale; my Dad was still alive, my oldest brother was still alive, worries were few.

It's an interesting exercise to go back by decades and look at where you were.  The last 10 years have been some of my happiest and most contented.  They have probably been the quietest years, too, not much drama.  To some that could spell b-o-r-i-n-g, but I'll take boring.  Add a dash of travel into a quiet life and you have the right mix, in my book, a recipe for well-being.  Add new and old friends and you have delight.  Well-being and delight can support me through any tough times to come.

Happy 65th Birthday to all of you who might be already there or quickly approaching this age.  A pinch to grow in wisdom, tolerance, friendship.

Black and White and Read All Over

I love this cartoon because it shows so perfectly why I still read a newspaper.  I can take it anywhere with me, including the bathroom for an extended visit.  I don't like this trend of newspapers failing, for people to stop reading them, for getting news from the computer or solely from the television.  I can't do it.  I've tried.  I have the NY Times sending me their news every day on my computer.  I look at the titles of the articles and of the OpEd and I end up choosing only one or two articles or editorials to read, if I read any at all.  I read the titles and then I think, oh, whatever, I don't have time to read that right now, I'm tired of being on this computer.  I have better things to do.

I don't feel that way about an actual newspaper.  I get the USA Today, because the Kitsap Sun wasn't serious enough and didn't have enough national news and not much content of any kind anymore.  My son has argued that the USA Today is the "worst paper" in the nation.  Maybe he's right, though he really doesn't have a leg to stand on because he reads no newspapers at all.  And I find that USA T. has lots of content.  I like the visuals, the graphs, the results of polls, the extensive national/international news.  Certainly it's not as serious or intellectual as the NY Times, but I truly don't have time to read a paper as big as that, and I'd want to read it all.  There'd be no time to clean the kitchen floor or do the laundry or to take a walk.  Wouldn't be able to accomplish anything--would have to read my Times.  Even with the smaller paper I get I end up having a pile of 2 or 3 of them that I haven't finished yet.

I like to hold a newspaper in my hand, I like to put it down and come back to it. I like to cut out an article and send it to a friend.  We used to like to get articles from my husband's Dad--sometimes we weren't sure why he sent them but they were still a nice way of communicating.  I don't even mind the black ink on my fingers.  I feel the same about books.  I want to turn pages, dog-ear them if there's something good on that page, loan them to people if I love them.  I'm not going to read them again, and most I will give away or take to the used book store for credit, but I like the heft of a book in my hand. I like the cover art and the accolades listed on the back.  My daughter has a Kindle--it's fascinating technology but I can't do it.  Don't want to do it--won't.  

Are people like me going to die off?  Is the hard-cover book business, the paper newspaper, going to go away some day as younger people get more and more used to getting their news from tiny little screens, by Twitters, by Facebooks, by Googles?  What kind of news will it be?  Will there be content or will it end up being just one-liners?  US Freighter Boarded by Pirates Today!  North Korea Launches Missile! Bank fails!  Taxes Increase!  Obama's Get Dog!  No whys or wherefores, just headlines.  No Woodwards or Bersteins doing investigative reporting, maybe an Ask Jesse on the news, but will it be enough to stay informed?

My husband has recently stopped taking the Kitsap Sun and reads it online now.  It works for him because he's always been a "headline" guy.  He can rip through a paper in 5 minutes.  If something grabs his attention he may read further, but usually not.  He watches the news and stays up on things, even arguing with what he hears there.  But because I read whole articles and editorials I know much more about what he has read in a headline and if I want to argue a point I have something to back me up.  I miss the Sun only because I can't get the Sunday Crossword anymore.  Do it online you may say, but no can do!  I have to have that page in my hand, and that pencil and I have to be able to pick it up and put it down and pick it up again. I've taken to begging my Mom for her copy because, sadly, the USA Today's crossword is pathetic.

I have to admit to not knowing much about what is going on in my own town and county anymore, but the Sun wasn't helping me out in that area much anyway (and the CK Journal is helpful for that and it's free!).  I could see that people were being murdered, that there were house fires, car accidents, domestic abuse, drug raids--as has been said, "What bleeds, leads", but it was more "scare news" than anything else.  The TV news is much of the same.  I want reporting that causes me to ask myself how I feel about that, what I think.  I don't want to be shocked over and over.  I want to muse on things.  If I want to know how Thomas Friedman is viewing the world or what Paul Klugman is thinking about the economy I can go to NY Times online, but in the meantime I'll stick with my USA Today, keep stealing my Mom's Sunday NY Times crossword from her Sun, and rely on Ralph to email me with any notices of alumni deaths.  I'll keep reading my news on paper as long as I'm allowed and my books, too.  I'll probably be part of a dying breed, but I'm going to hold out until the last.  And keep washing the printer's ink off my fingers.

Infernal Method?

I gave my husband a "page a day" calendar for Christmas.  It was titled The Stupidest Things Ever Said or something like that.  Every day he brings me the daily page home so that I can read the dopey things people have actually said.  I have saved some of my favorites and I'll share them with you.

The oldest quote in the ones I've saved is from 1861:

"I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here...We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped."  Senator Simon Cameron speaking about the Smithsonian Institute

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Anybody who watches The Big Bang Theory will wonder if this is a Sheldon quote but it isn't:

"This is strictly a pantagraphic hauntography of proto-manic motherworlds.  Mysteriograms of toposonic radiances are deconstructed and raptoluminal resonances at residual numinophillic nemeta sites are reiterated in the mycoboreal precincts."  

This is from a press release for the music of the band Infernal Method.  Infernal indeed!!!  Hope they're taking their medication!  I've included a picture of one of their albums above.  I bet their music would make your ears bleed.

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This next one is probably just a bad interpretation, but an interpretation of what???

"Alternatively, you must follow my advice whenever I say 'maltose'."  An English subtitle in a Hong Kong kung-fu movie

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I would have had a hard time keeping from giggling if I'd been to the wedding where this was said:

"Come build with me a Temple, and not a Tavern, out of the lumber of our lives."  Contributed by Rev. David Peterson

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And finally a sentiment many of us could get behind:

"We don't all agree on everything.  I don't agree with myself on everything."  And that was said by America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference

Hope you've enjoyed these as much as I did.

March 15th? Really?

Is this Winter of 2008-09 ever going to end?  My poor snow-laden daffodils would like to know, as would my frozen crocuses, as would I.  Sitting on the couch this morning, with a blanket on my knees, watching CBS Sunday Morning and once again watching the snow fall rapidly, building up 4 inches in less than 2 hours, I begin to wonder!  If this is Global Warming it's not what I expected.  I think it's supposed to be the First Day of Spring in 6 days....tell that to the robins.  

Pictures

Top:  Zuzu

Middle: Alison

Bottom: Their Daddy when he was about 16 months old

Last week I was redoing a photo album from 1977-78.  The album was falling apart and I was taking all the pictures out of it and putting them into a better album that wouldn't fall apart and would hopefully preserve the pictures.  At the time we took the pictures we thought we were taking lots of them.  We used up rolls of film like toilet paper.  We were always sending them off to get developed and waiting the week or so that it took to get them back.  When we got them back they went into the albums pretty quickly.  I didn't like photos sitting around in envelopes and boxes.  I wanted to look at them, in order, in a book.

How things have changed!  The difference in the quality of the pictures above is striking.  The two top pictures were, of course, taken recently with a digital camera, the bottom one with a film camera in 1978.  Even if the top two pictures had turned out dark like the bottom one, they could have been "fixed" immediately, without paying anything, without any directions to the photo lab, without waiting.  If we took a "bad" picture we kept it anyway because you only got 24 chances in a roll.  Nowadays  you can throw away anything that you don't like and still have plenty of pictures left to choose from.  

Oh, I wish I'd had a digital camera when my kids were young.  As I said we thought we were taking LOTS of pictures, but it was nothing compared to the documentation of my grandchildren, whose faces can be seen in literally thousands of pictures.  See www.flickr.com/photos/plasticporkbone if you want to get an idea of how many photos are there.  And those are only the ones that made the cut.  There were many more on the camera, because we can now take as many pictures as we want in pursuit of the perfect one.

I do love the digital age, especially when it comes to photographs, but there is a downside.  There isn't the need for photo albums anymore and so most people put the pictures they want to save on their computers and when they want to look at them, they go to their monitors and watch them go by.  Or they get a digital picture frame or they use their pictures as screen savers.  That doesn't do it for me.  I am still a member of the group, growing smaller and smaller, of people who like to hold a picture album on my lap and linger over the pictures, comparing them with pictures from a year ago, or a decade ago.  Look at how much she looks like her Grandfather!  The hairdos were so funny in the 80's!  Can you believe he's grown into such a tall young man?  Look at him when he was 3 years old!  I can't believe that's me!  I was so thin and my hair was so dark!

Pictures can still be printed but how many people are still getting photos printed?  Will we see the photo album going the way of the 8-track cassette soon?  When a teenager brings a boyfriend home will they have to turn on the computer to see the embarrassing pictures of their new girlfriend as a naked baby?  Will they have to go to the computer when their children are born to compare their features to those of their relatives?  Will they have to insert a CD into a slot to view their pictures from their vacation?  Or will all those thousands of pictures, forever preserved in digital form ever be looked at?  Isn't it so much easier to take an album off the shelf and leaf through it?  Isn't it fun when your kids come home to visit to pull out the old albums and sit with them and remember?

Granted it is easier and much faster to download digital pictures directly from a camera into a computer file.  It's takes more effort to choose pictures to be printed, pay the 15 cents or less for each one, put each into an album.  It takes some time and some dedication to keep at it.  But I truly think it is a worthwhile endeavor.  To linger over a picture, to relive the memory behind it, to study the images, to touch them, to compare and reflect is soul satisfying in a way that pictures on a disk or computer is not.  I hope there are young people who will continue this practice and that it won't become one of those bygone hobbies that only have meaning to the "old folks".  It would be a sad loss.